Review By Kayleigh
Tender Beasts is an addictive, gothic story about family and the stories we tell ourselves.
Favourite Quote:
That was the secret to being nice. You made everything about everyone else, and you shoved yourself down, deeper and deeper.
Goodreads Synopsis:
After her private school is rocked by a gruesome murder, a teen tries to find the real killer and clear her brother’s name in this psychological thriller perfect for fans of The Taking of Jake Livingston and Ace of Spades.
Sunny Behre has four siblings, but only one is a murderer.
With the death of Sunny’s mother, matriarch of the wealthy Behre family, Sunny’s once picture-perfect life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother had groomed her to be the family’s next leader, so Sunny is confused when the only instructions her mother leaves is a mysterious note: “Take care of Dom.”
The problem is, her youngest brother, Dom, has always been a near-stranger to Sunny…and seemingly a dangerous one, if found guilty of his second-degree murder charge. Still, Sunny is determined to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. But when a classmate is gruesomely murdered, and Sunny finds her brother with blood on his hands, her mother’s simple request becomes a lot more complicated. Dom swears he’s innocent, and although Sunny isn’t sure she believes him, she takes it upon herself to look into the murder—made all the more urgent by the discovery of another body. And another.
As Sunny and Dom work together to track down the culprit, Sunny realizes her other siblings have their own dark secrets. Soon she may have to choose: preserve the family she’s always loved or protect the brother she barely knows—and risk losing everything her mother worked so hard to build.
Liselle Sambury is a master storyteller whose craft keeps getting better and better. Tender Beasts is a YA horror that deals with death, family, roles and responsibilities and the secrets we keep even from ourselves. It also deals with a serial killer, cult-like behaviour and first relationships. It kept me on my toes, to say the least.
Sunny is the seemingly perfect daughter in a privileged family in Toronto, Ontario. She’s been raised by her ambitious and powerful mother to be the next in line to take care of her family. Sunny tries to always be, well, sunny and cheery. She also works on being happy, not needing anyone to worry about her, and representing her family well. What it means is that she isn’t able to form deep relationships with herself or others because she doesn’t really let her true self out. And then her world is rocked with murder and her mother dies. Are the murders connected? Why is her eldest sister suddenly taking charge of the family? And what has her mother hidden that is now coming to life in her death?
The story is told mostly by the fascinating Sunny, whose family and friends dynamics leads to a powerful coming of age story that is interspersed with her mother’s diary entries from when she was Sunny’s age. How did her family become who they are, and how far will Sunny go to protect her family are answers she will have to discover during an action packed time in her life. Sunny is almost annoying at the beginning of the book – she’s so focused on being perfect: the perfect daughter, sibling, friend, student. She doesn’t see that she’s actually not fooling anyone with her facade. It’s not until things go terribly wrong (note that there are some content warnings at the beginning of the book and there is a fair amount of gore in the story) that we watch Sunny develop into a really fascinating character. Sunny’s whole family is incredibly captivating: they are a wealthy black family who run a private school for underprivileged teens and who have an interesting ranch house outside of town. Liselle masterfully weaves the mundane with the magnificent in Tender Beasts. There’s also an easter egg to her last book, Delicious Monsters, which was a delight to uncover.
Thank you, Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC in return for an honest review.
